Fiction, Essays, and Other Things

  Tried as I did, I could not get lodging at the Wigwam Motel. However, I resolved to do the next best thing and visited the icon before departing from Holbrook. Opening in 1950, Holbrook’s motel became the sixth Wigwam Village to open when Chester E. Lewis entered a licensing agreement with Frank A. Redford for his original 1936 design consisting of a row of motel cabins shaped like teepees (incorrectly labeled wigwams). In Lewis’s rendition (the first one west of the Mississippi), fifteen teepees are arranged in a square They offer all the standard motel amenities, including the original furniture. Classic American cars from the golden age of road travel line the parking lot in keeping with the spirit that brought the Wigwam Village to Arizona. Today, the sixth is one of three surviving Wigwam Villages along with the second in Cave City, Kentucky and the last one built in San Bernardino, California. On my way out of Holbrook I spotted the new cowboy statue erected in 2023 to ...

  Gallup is a fun buzzing city but my stay there felt like a whirlwind. It was my last stop in New Mexico and I was looking forward to crossing over into Arizona and Petrified Forest National Park. I was already off to a late start and that is the worst way to visit a national park. Still, El Rancho Hotel is a must see and I’m glad I made time for it. Built in 1937 by R.E. Griffith, the brother of film pioneer D.W. Griffith, and in the ensuing decades welcomed an impressive roster of A-listers from Hollywood’s golden age such as Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart. Despite its splendor during the studio-era, however, the El Rancho lost much of its glamour when Interstate 40 bypassed Gallup. It was saved from dilapidation, however, when local real-estate magnet Armand Ortega, bought the property in 1989 and restored it to its former glory.                                         ...